


Trouble is a Friend

by newdog14



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, MariBat, Maribat March, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Is So Done, Plagg is a Little Shit (Miraculous Ladybug), nooroo is a precious bean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 06:14:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29870370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newdog14/pseuds/newdog14
Summary: Plagg was missing, possibly with an unknown human, in the world’s most dangerous city, and he had no way of rescuing himself. How absolutely fantastic. Really, she couldn’t imagine any possible way for this situation to be worse.Marinette hadn’t voiced the thought, but the universe took it as a challenge anyway. She really ought to know better.For Maribat March Day 5: Last Time
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Damian Wayne, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Plagg
Comments: 11
Kudos: 132
Collections: Maribat March





	Trouble is a Friend

“Dammit Plagg, I swear this is the  _ last time _ ,” Marinette hissed, angrily setting up a spell with Barkk to find out where the god of chaos had wandered off to now. She was starting to see why Master Fu had kept the kwami in the miracle box.  _ Most  _ of them were perfectly well behaved and easy to deal with.  _ Plagg _ , however, was an absolute menace, and had an annoying tendency to convince the other kwami to  _ help him  _ be a menace, and he and Kaalki were going to be spending the next several months in the box when she got them back from this stunt.

The map she was stood over glowed as the spell was completed, the light circling the map a few times before gathering over the city her missing kwami had wandered off to. Marinette didn’t bother to hold back her groan.  _ Of course _ , of all the possible cities they could have gone to, they picked  _ that one. _ The  _ worst _ one. Gotham City, home of the magic hating Batman and his snobby, arrogant, menace of a partner.

She’d sort of been hoping that she wouldn’t see either of them again, after her disastrous but thankfully brief stint working with the Teen Titans. She didn’t know why she was even surprised, Plagg had done this specifically to torture her,  _ of course _ he and Kaalki were in Gotham. That cat would never see a piece of Camembert again if she had to face off with the vigilantes, she swore it.

The worst part of this, however, was  _ getting  _ to Gotham. The fastest way would be using the Justice League’s zeta tubes, which she technically did still have access to, but if she used them then Batman and Robin would  _ know _ Ladybug was in Gotham and she’d definitely have to talk to them and it would be awful. But without Kaalki, her only other option was to  _ fly  _ to Gotham as a civilian, which would take longer and be expensive.

She could totally  _ do it _ , of course, she had the money, but it was going to be a hassle. But, when faced with the alternative...she bought a plane ticket. Plagg and Kaalki were in  _ so much  _ trouble when she found them.

“G-guardian?” Nooroo asked, looking nervous and afraid. Marinette took a breath as she turned to them, doing her best to reign in her anger. Nooroo had spent too long being afraid of the human he was bound to, Marinette refused to make him fear her too.

“Yes, Nooroo?” she asked, smiling encouragingly.

“I...I need to tell you,” he began, looking more nervous than ever, “I...I might have helped Plagg hide from you.”

Marinette blinked in surprise, but she kept herself from getting angry at the little god. “Helped him how?”

“He...he said that he wanted to find the true cat holder,” Nooroo said, “He said it would make you happy, but he needed to be able to interact with the human world to do it. So I turned him into his animal form.”

Marinette...didn’t know that Nooroo could do that. “Huh. Okay. So he’s running around as an actual black cat then?”

“Yes, but…” Nooroo said, still nervous but clearly emboldened by her lack of anger. “He won’t be able to speak or use his powers in that form. That’s why Kaalki stayed with him, to help if he got into trouble.”

“Is that so…” Marinette said, thinking over this new information carefully. Perhaps being sent to the box again wasn’t the right punishment for Plagg after all. It hadn’t been working as a deterrent at all, but this...well, she’d have to find him and see how well he was actually faring as a true feline, but it was certainly an idea. “Well, Nooroo, I hope you’ll be up for a trip to Gotham with me?”

“Of course, Guardian!” Nooroo said, now smiling at her.

“Then we better get packing,” Marinette said, smiling right back at the little kwami as she pulled out her suitcase. The other kwami watched the whole exchange, mostly in silence, but Trixx was pouting.

“How come Nooroo never gets in trouble for anything?” the fox grumbled. “I swear she’d let him get away with murder.”

Marinette pointedly ignored this comment.

* * *

Gotham was a terrible city, really. Marinette had been on the ground for all of two hours and she’d already had to deal with two rogue attacks, three would be pickpockets, and one subway creep. Worst of all, the city was so filled with chaos, destruction, and bad luck that Barkk was having a very difficult time sniffing out Plagg.

It probably wasn’t helping that his magic was muted by Nooroo’s transformation, but she wasn’t going to risk upsetting the little god by pointing this out.

Kaalki, on the other hand, had been easily found. Unfortunately, she had been separated from her partner in crime, and was refusing to explain  _ how _ , aside from “a human picked him up and took him somewhere I couldn’t follow.”

Marinette was very displeased with this, but she hated to order the kwami around so Kaalki was allowed to keep her silence. Though Marinette was very open with her annoyance about the situation, and was sure to give Kaalki her best disappointed face. It was an expression she’d learned from Tikki, who had sadly been left behind because Marinette could only safely handle so many miraculous at once.

But back to the problem at hand: Plagg was missing, possibly with an unknown human, in the world’s most dangerous city, and he had no way of rescuing himself. How absolutely fantastic. Really, she couldn’t imagine any possible way for this situation to be worse.

She hadn’t voiced the thought, but the universe took it as a challenge anyway. She really ought to know better.

* * *

Barkk had offhandedly remarked that humans should have invented ways to track lost animals, reminding Marinette that they  _ had _ , in fact, invented ways to track lost animals. So the next morning she started going to shelters, and she drew up a quick lost cat flyer, and she hoped that whoever had found Plagg, if they still had him, had treated him as a lost pet.

For once the universe seemed to remember that as Tikki’s chosen, luck was supposed to be on  _ her _ side, and that very afternoon she received a call from a woman whose step son had just found a black cat that fit the description of Marinette’s little runaway. She sent a photo of a green eyed black cat that Marinette didn’t even need Kaalki and Nooroo to confirm was Plagg (there was chaos in those little green eyes, she’d know them anywhere), and the woman invited Marinette to their home to pick up her wayward kitten.

She should have known that it would never be so easy.

Their home, as it turned out, was a literal manor just outside the city, which meant that she couldn’t just teleport right there and claim to have been in the neighborhood. Foolishly, she decided to simply take a taxi over, which meant that when they arrived at the gates she only had seconds to deal with the magical barrier that was keeping the kwami out, which so wasn’t enough time. 

But she couldn’t exactly tell the driver to let her out there at the gate, so Barkk, Kaalki, and Nooroo slipped out of the car and hid in the woods to wait. She really hoped that they would be okay on their own. With any luck this would be quick, and they’d all be reunited soon enough. But of course, when has Marinette ever  _ really _ been consistently lucky?

Never. That’s when.

Marinette was greeted by an older man who seemed quite relieved that someone had come to claim the mischievous black cat that the young master had picked up. Apparently, Plagg had been causing quite a bit of trouble during his stay. Marinette wished she could say she was surprised by this turn of events, but she wasn’t. Plagg was a little shit, and a bit of shapeshifting wasn’t going to change anything.

The man led her into a sitting room, where a boy her age was playing with a black cat and a woman was watching them fondly. She looked up and smiled when they entered the room. “Oh good, you must be the girl I spoke to on the phone.”

“Yes ma’am,” Marinette answered, smiling even as the boy looked up at her with a scowl. “Thank you so much for looking after Plagg, I know he can be a bit of a handful.”

Plagg meowed angrily, then moved to rub against the boy while looking pointedly back at her. Marinette sighed as she remembered Nooroo’s claim about Plagg’s intentions. The boy started scratching Plagg’s ears, and the cat began purring loudly. Marinette frowned at the troublesome little god. “Time to go, Plagg.”

Plagg climbed up the boy’s arm and settled himself on his shoulder, looking at her with the closest thing to indignation he could manage in his current form. Marinette pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration.

“Do you really expect him to come when you call, dear?” The woman asked, mild amusement in her tone. “He is a cat, after all.”

“He’s smart enough to know how much trouble he’s in,” Marinette said pointedly. “He’s just being difficult.”

“You can’t blame him for getting lost,” the boy snapped. “If you left him with a way out it’s your fault that he got out. Do we even have proof that this is her cat? It doesn’t seem to like her much.”

“Master Damian that cat has been here less than two days and he has already shredded three sets of curtains, smashed four antique vases, and has managed to scratch at every piece of furniture in this room,” said the older man. “So if you’re hoping that finding some fault in this young woman’s pet ownership skills will allow you to keep him, do think again.”

“I am so sorry,” Marinette said, horrified by the amount of destruction the cat had wrought. “I can pay for the damages.”

“No need, dear,” said the woman, “It’s not your fault Damian brought him home, after all.”

Technically that might have been true, but Marinette was pretty sure Plagg would have found his way here no matter what. He was rather incorrigible. “Well, I’ll just get him out of your hair then. Thank you again for looking after him. I’ll be sure that this is the last time he ever escapes.”

She moved forward to take Plagg from Damian, and the cat ducked low and clung to his sweater with a whiney, plaintive meow. Damian reached up to rub his ears, and Plagg gave a contented little purr. Damian glared at her. “I find it curious how much he clearly doesn’t want to go with you.”

“This isn’t about not wanting to go with  _ me _ , he’s being a brat because he doesn’t want to leave  _ you _ ,” Marinette said, not quite caring about the impression that statement might leave them with. Sure, it was a weird thing to say about a cat, but Marinette was too annoyed to care much about appearances. Plagg was so never getting Camembert again. Actually… “You know what, you should keep him. He clearly doesn’t want to go back with me, and you seem like you know a lot about taking care of cats.”

“I do,” Damian said, frowning at her warily. Plagg was also watching her with narrowed eyes, as if he sensed a trap. Smart kitty.

“I’ll bet you know that cats are lactose intolerant then,” Marinette said. “And would never, ever give one cheese.”

“Of course I know that,” Damian said, just as Plagg jumped off his shoulder with wide eyes. The cat ran towards her quickly, then leapt up into her arms and began purring in repentance. Marinette rolled her eyes.

“That’s what I thought,” she muttered, glaring at the trouble maker. Damian frowned, looking at Plagg with something akin to hurt.  _ Hell… _ “If you wanted to see him again, your stepmother has my number. He really likes you, so…it’d be a shame, if this was the last time he ever got to see you.”

Marinette was too nice. But Damian did brighten, however slightly, and he seemed less tense. Plagg also seemed happier, if the renewed intensity of his purring was anything to go by. And, well, if the boy really was the true black cat holder then knowing him would probably be a good thing. Even if he was kind of a jerk.

“Perhaps future meetings can occur somewhere with less expensive furniture to destroy,” the older man said, sounding resigned to having to deal with Plagg further. Marinette didn’t blame him.

“That can be arranged,” Marinette said. She’d have to get an apartment in Gotham, but, well. That could happen. Though she  _ really _ hoped she didn’t end up running into Robin because of this. That would be just her luck, too.


End file.
